I finally went to see Clint Eastwood's Iraq war movie, "American Sniper," after a partisan culture war broke out around it. If we had debated with this much gusto before we invaded Iraq, there might not have been a war to make a movie about....

During her live, nationally televised Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, Sen. Joni Ernst inserted a cute story from her childhood that seemed to offer everything a homespun narrative should offer -- except a...